Soon after taking office, Reagan began implementing sweeping new political and economic initiatives. His
supply-side economic
policies, dubbed "Reaganomics", advocated tax rate reduction to spur economic growth, economic deregulation, and reduction in government spending. In his first term he survived an
assassination attempt, spurred the
War on Drugs, and fought public sector labor. Over his two terms, the economy saw a reduction of inflation from 12.5% to 4.4%, and an average annual growth of
real GDP
of 3.4%. Reagan enacted cuts in domestic discretionary spending, cut taxes, and increased military spending which contributed to increased federal outlays overall, even after adjustment for inflation. Foreign affairs dominated his second term, including ending the Cold War, the
bombing of Libya, the
Iran–Iraq War, and the
Iran–Contra affair. In June 1987, four years after he publicly described the Soviet Union as an "evil empire", Reagan challenged Soviet
General SecretaryMikhail Gorbachev
to "tear down this wall!", during a speech at the
Brandenburg Gate. He transitioned Cold War policy from
détente
to rollback
by escalating an arms race
with the USSR while engaging in talks with Gorbachev. The talks culminated in the INF Treaty, which shrank both countries' nuclear arsenals. Reagan began his presidency during the decline of the Soviet Union, and the
Berlin Wall
fell just ten months after the end of his term. Germany reunified
the following year, and on December 26, 1991 (nearly three years after he left office), the Soviet Union collapsed.

When Reagan left office in 1989, he held an approval rating of 68 percent, matching those of
Franklin D. Roosevelt, and later
Bill Clinton, as the highest ratings for departing presidents in the modern era.[1]
He was the first president since Dwight D. Eisenhower
to serve two full terms, after a succession of five prior presidents did not. Although he had planned an active post-presidency, Reagan disclosed in November 1994 that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease
earlier that year. Afterward, his informal public appearances became more infrequent as the disease progressed. He died at home
on June 5, 2004. An icon among American conservatives, he is viewed favorably in
historical rankings of U.S. presidents, and his tenure constituted a
realignment
toward conservative policies in the United States.

Reagan's father nicknamed his son "Dutch", due to his "fat little Dutchman"-like appearance and "Dutchboy" haircut;[6]
the nickname stuck with him throughout his youth.[6]
Reagan's family briefly lived in several towns and cities in Illinois, including Monmouth,
Galesburg, and Chicago.[7]
In 1919, they returned to Tampico and lived above the H. C. Pitney Variety Store
until finally settling in Dixon.[2]
After his election as president, Reagan resided in the upstairs White House private quarters, and he would quip that he was "living above the store again".[8]

Religion

Ronald Reagan wrote that his mother "always expected to find the best in people and often did".[9]
She attended the Disciples of Christ
church regularly and was active, and very influential, within it; she frequently led Sunday school services and gave the Bible
readings to the congregation during the services. A strong believer in the power of prayer, she led prayer meetings at church and was in charge of mid-week prayers when the pastor was out of town.[10]
Her strong commitment to the church is what induced her son Ronald to become a Protestant Christian
rather than a Roman Catholic
like his father.[4]
He also stated that she strongly influenced his own beliefs: "I know that she planted that faith very deeply in me."[11]

According to
Paul Kengor, author of
God and Ronald Reagan, Reagan had a particularly strong faith in the goodness of people; this faith stemmed from the optimistic faith of his mother[12]
and the Disciples of Christ
faith,[12]
into which he was baptized in 1922.[13]
For that period of time, which was long before the civil rights movement, Reagan's opposition to
racial discrimination
was unusual and commendable. He recalled the time in Dixon when the proprietor of a local inn would not allow black people
to stay there, and he brought them back to his house. His mother invited them to stay overnight and have breakfast the next morning.[14]
After the closure of the Pitney Store in 1920 and the family's move to Dixon,[15]
the midwestern "small universe" had a lasting impression on Reagan.[16]

Formal education

Reagan attended
Dixon High School, where he developed interests in acting, sports, and storytelling.[17]
His first job involved working as a lifeguard
at the Rock River
in Lowell Park in 1927. Over a six-year period, Reagan reportedly performed 77 rescues as a lifeguard.[18]
He attended Eureka College, a Disciples-oriented liberal arts school, where he became a member of the
Tau Kappa Epsilon
fraternity, a cheerleader, and studied economics and sociology. While involved, the Miller Center of Public Affairs
described him as an "indifferent student". He majored in economics and sociology and graduated with a C grade.[19]
He developed a reputation as a "jack of all trades", excelling in campus politics, sports, and theater. He was a member of the football
team and captain of the swim team. He was elected student body president and led a student revolt against the college president after the president tried to cut back the faculty.[20]

Entertainment career

Radio and film

After graduating from Eureka in 1932, Reagan drove to Iowa, where he held jobs as a radio announcer at several stations. He moved to
WHO
radio in Des Moines
as an announcer for Chicago Cubs
baseball games. His specialty was creating play-by-play accounts of games using as his source only basic descriptions that the station received by wire as the games were in progress.[21]

While traveling with the Cubs in California in 1937, Reagan took a screen test that led to a seven-year contract with
Warner Brothers
studios.[22]
He spent the first few years of his Hollywood career in the "B film" unit, where, Reagan joked, the producers "didn't want them good; they wanted them Thursday".[23]

Reagan played his favorite acting role in 1942's
Kings Row,[27]
where he plays a double amputee who recites the line "Where's the rest of me?"—later used as the title of his 1965 autobiography. Many film critics considered Kings Row
to be his best movie,[28]
though the film was condemned by The New York Times
critic Bosley Crowther.[29][30]

Although Reagan called
Kings Row
the film that "made me a star",[31]
he was unable to capitalize on his success because he was ordered to active duty with the U.S. Army at San Francisco two months after its release, and never regained "star" status in motion pictures.[31]
In the post-war era, after being separated from almost four years of World War II stateside service with the 1st Motion Picture Unit in December 1945, Reagan co-starred in such films as The Voice of the Turtle,
John Loves Mary,
The Hasty Heart,
Bedtime for Bonzo,
Cattle Queen of Montana,
Tennessee's Partner,
Hellcats of the Navy
(the only film in which he appears with Nancy Reagan), and the 1964 remake The Killers
(his final film). Throughout his film career, Reagan's mother answered much of his fan mail.[32]

Military service

After completing 14 home-study Army Extension Courses, Reagan enlisted in the
Army Enlisted Reserve
and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Officers' Reserve Corps of the Cavalry on May 25, 1937.[33]

On April 18, 1942, Reagan was ordered to active duty for the first time. Due to his poor eyesight, he was classified for limited service only, which excluded him from serving overseas.[34]
His first assignment was at the San Francisco Port of Embarkation
at Fort Mason, California, as a liaison officer of the Port and Transportation Office.[35]
Upon the approval of the Army Air Forces
(AAF), he applied for a transfer from the cavalry to the AAF on May 15, 1942, and was assigned to AAF Public Relations and subsequently to the First Motion Picture Unit
(officially, the "18th Army Air Force Base Unit") in Culver City, California.[35]
On January 14, 1943, he was promoted to first lieutenant
and was sent to the Provisional Task Force Show Unit of This Is the Army
at Burbank, California.[35]
He returned to the First Motion Picture Unit after completing this duty and was promoted to captain
on July 22, 1943.[36]

In January 1944, Reagan was ordered to temporary duty in New York City to participate in the opening of the
Sixth War Loan Drive, which campaigned for the purchase of
war bonds. He was reassigned to the First Motion Picture Unit on November 14, 1944, where he remained until the end of World War II.[36]
He was recommended for promotion to major
on February 2, 1945, but this recommendation was disapproved on July 17 of that year.[37]
While with the First Motion Picture Unit in 1945, he was indirectly involved in discovering actress Marilyn Monroe.[38]
He returned to Fort MacArthur, California, where he was separated from active duty on December 9, 1945.[37]
By the end of the war, his units had produced some 400 training films for the AAF.[36]

Screen Actors Guild presidency

Guest stars for the premiere of
The Dick Powell Show. Reagan stands behind, far left of the photograph

Reagan was first elected to the Board of Directors of the
Screen Actors Guild
(SAG) in 1941, serving as an alternate member. After World War II, he resumed service and became third vice-president in 1946.[39]
The adoption of conflict-of-interest
bylaws in 1947 led the SAG president and six board members to resign; Reagan was nominated in a special election for the position of president and was subsequently elected.[39]
He was chosen by the membership to serve seven additional one-year terms, from 1947 to 1952 and in 1959.[39]
Reagan led the SAG through eventful years that were marked by labor-management disputes, the Taft–Hartley Act, the
House Un-American Activities Committee
(HUAC) hearings and the Hollywood blacklist
era.[39]

Secret FBI informant in Hollywood

During the late 1940s, Reagan and his then-wife,
Jane Wyman, provided the
FBI
with the names of actors within the motion picture industry whom they believed to be communist sympathizers. Though he expressed reservations, he said, "Do they expect us to constitute ourselves as a little FBI of our own and determine just who is a Commie and who isn't?"[40]

Reagan also testified on the subject before the
House Un-American Activities Committee.[41]
A fervent anti-communist, he reaffirmed his commitment to democratic principles, stating, "I never as a citizen want to see our country become urged, by either fear or resentment of this group, that we ever compromise with any of our democratic principles through that fear or resentment."[41]

Television

Though an early critic of television, Reagan landed fewer film roles in the late 1950s and decided to join the medium.[23]
He was hired as the host of General Electric Theater,[42]
a series of weekly dramas that became very popular.[23]
His contract required him to tour General Electric
(GE) plants 16 weeks out of the year, which often demanded that he give 14 speeches per day.[23]
He earned approximately $125,000 (equivalent to $1.0 million in 2017) in this role. The show ran for 10 seasons from 1953 to 1962, which increased Reagan's profile in American households.[43]
He had previously appeared in feature films mostly in supporting roles or as a "second lead". In his final work as a professional actor, Reagan was a host and performer from 1964 to 1965 on the television series Death Valley Days.[44]
Reagan and future wife Nancy Davis
appeared together on television several times, including an episode of General Electric Theater
in 1958 called "A Turkey for the President."[45]

Marriages and children

In 1938, Reagan co-starred in the film
Brother Rat
with actress Jane Wyman
(1917–2007). They announced their engagement at the Chicago Theatre[46]
and married on January 26, 1940 at the Wee Kirk o' the Heather church
in Glendale, California.[47]
Together they had two biological children, Maureen
(1941–2001) and Christine (b. in 1947 but lived only one day), and adopted a third, Michael
(b. 1945).[48]
After the couple had arguments about Reagan's political ambitions, Wyman filed for divorce in 1948,[49]
citing a distraction due to her husband's Screen Actors Guild union duties; the divorce was finalized in 1949.[25]
Wyman, who was a registered Republican, also stated that their break-up was due to a difference in politics (Reagan was still a
Democrat
at the time).[50]
When Reagan became President 32 years later, he had the distinction of being the first divorced person to assume the nation's highest office.[51]
Reagan and Wyman continued to be friends until his death, with Wyman voting for Reagan in both of his runs and, upon his death, saying "America has lost a great president and a great, kind, and gentle man."[52]

Reagan met actress
Nancy Davis
(1921–2016)[53][54]
in 1949 after she contacted him in his capacity as president of the Screen Actors Guild. He helped her with issues regarding her name appearing on a Communist blacklist in Hollywood. She had been mistaken for another Nancy Davis. She described their meeting by saying, "I don't know if it was exactly love at first sight, but it was pretty close."[55]
They were engaged at Chasen's
restaurant in Los Angeles and were married on March 4, 1952, at the Little Brown Church in the Valley (North Hollywood, now Studio City) San Fernando Valley.[56]
Actor William Holden
served as best man at the ceremony. They had two children: Patti
(b. 1952) and Ronald "Ron" Jr.
(b. 1958).

Observers described the Reagans' relationship as close, authentic and intimate.[57]
During his presidency, they reportedly displayed frequent affection for one another; one press secretary said, "They never took each other for granted. They never stopped courting."[55][58]
He often called her "Mommy" and she called him "Ronnie."[58]
He once wrote to her, "Whatever I treasure and enjoy... all would be without meaning if I didn't have you."[59]
When he was in the hospital in 1981 after an assassination attempt, she slept with one of his shirts to be comforted by his scent.[60]
In a letter to the American people in 1994, Reagan wrote "I have recently been told that I am one of the millions of Americans who will be afflicted with Alzheimer's disease... I only wish there was some way I could spare Nancy from this painful experience,"[55]
and in 1998, while he was stricken by Alzheimer's, Nancy told Vanity Fair, "Our relationship is very special. We were very much in love and still are. When I say my life began with Ronnie, well, it's true. It did. I can't imagine life without him."[55]Nancy Reagan
died on March 6, 2016 at the age of 94.[61]

At rallies, Reagan spoke frequently with a strong ideological dimension. In December 1945, he was stopped from leading an anti-nuclear rally in Hollywood by pressure from the
Warner Bros. studio. He would later make nuclear weapons a key point of his presidency when he specifically stated his opposition to
mutual assured destruction. Reagan also built on previous efforts to limit the spread of nuclear weapons.[65]
In the 1948 presidential election, Reagan strongly supported
Harry S. Truman
and appeared on stage with him during a campaign speech in Los Angeles.[66]
In the early 1950s, his relationship with actress Nancy Davis grew,[67]
and he shifted to the right when he endorsed the presidential candidacies of Dwight D. Eisenhower
(1952 and 1956) and Richard Nixon (1960).[68]

Reagan was hired by
General Electric
(GE) in 1954 to host the General Electric Theater, a weekly TV drama series. He also traveled across the country to give motivational speeches to over 200,000 GE employees. His many speeches—which he wrote himself—were
non-partisan
but carried a conservative, pro-business message; he was influenced by Lemuel Boulware, a senior GE executive. Boulware, known for his tough stance against unions and his innovative strategies to win over workers, championed the core tenets of modern American conservatism:
free markets,
anticommunism, lower taxes, and
limited government.[69]
Eager for a larger stage, but not allowed to enter politics by GE, he quit and formally registered as a Republican.[70]
He often said, "I didn't leave the Democratic Party. The party left me."[71]

When the legislation that would become
Medicare
was introduced in 1961, he created a recording for the American Medical Association
(AMA) warning that such legislation would mean the end of freedom in America. Reagan said that if his listeners did not write letters to prevent it, "we will awake to find that we have socialism. And if you don't do this, and if I don't do it, one of these days, you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children's children, what it once was like in America when men were free."[72][73]
He also joined the National Rifle Association
(NRA) and would become a lifetime member.[74]

Reagan gained national attention in his speeches for conservative presidential contender
Barry Goldwater
in 1964.[75]
Speaking for Goldwater, Reagan stressed his belief in the importance of smaller government. He consolidated themes that he had developed in his talks for GE to deliver his famous speech, "A Time for Choosing":

The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing ... You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream—the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order—or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.[76][77]

— October 27, 1964

This "A Time for Choosing" speech was not enough to turn around the faltering Goldwater campaign, but it was the key event that established Reagan's national political visibility.[78][79]

California Republicans were impressed with Reagan's political views and charisma after his "Time for Choosing" speech,[81]
and in late 1965 he announced his campaign for Governor
in the 1966 election.[82][83]
He defeated former San Francisco mayor George Christopher
in the GOP
primary. In Reagan's campaign, he emphasized two main themes: "to send the welfare
bums back to work," and, in reference to burgeoning anti-war and anti-establishment student protests
at the University of California at Berkeley, "to clean up the mess at Berkeley."[84]
In 1966, Reagan accomplished what both U.S. Senator William F. Knowland
in 1958 and former Vice President Richard Nixon
in 1962 had attempted to do: he was elected, defeating two-term governor Pat Brown, and was sworn in on January 2, 1967. In his first term, he froze government hiring and approved tax hikes to balance the budget.[85]

Shortly after assuming his gubernatorial term, Reagan tested the
1968 presidential waters
as part of a "Stop Nixon" movement, hoping to cut into Nixon's southern support[86]
and become a compromise candidate[87]
if neither Nixon nor second-place candidate Nelson Rockefeller
received enough delegates to win on the first ballot at the Republican convention. However, by the time of the convention, Nixon had 692 delegate votes, 25 more than he needed to secure the nomination, followed by Rockefeller with Reagan in third place.[86]

Reagan was involved in several high-profile conflicts with the protest movements of the era, including his public criticism of university administrators for tolerating student demonstrations at the
University of California, Berkeley
campus. On May 15, 1969, during the People's Park protests
at the university's campus (the original purpose of which was to discuss the Arab–Israeli conflict), Reagan sent the
California Highway Patrol
and other officers to quell the protests. This led to an incident that became known as "Bloody Thursday," resulting in the death of student James Rector
and the blinding of carpenter Alan Blanchard.[88][89]
In addition, 111 police officers were injured in the conflict, including one who was knifed in the chest. Reagan then called out 2,200 state National Guard
troops to occupy the city of Berkeley for two weeks to crack down on the protesters.[88]
The Guard remained in Berkeley for 17 days, camping in People's Park, and demonstrations subsided as the university removed cordoned-off fencing and placed all development plans for People's Park on hold.[88][90]
One year after "Bloody Thursday," Reagan responded to questions about campus protest movements saying, "If it takes a bloodbath, let's get it over with. No more appeasement."[91]
When the Symbionese Liberation Army
kidnapped Patty Hearst
in Berkeley and demanded the distribution of food to the poor, Reagan joked to a group of political aides about a botulism
outbreak contaminating the food.[92]

Early in 1967, the national debate on abortion was starting to gain traction. In the early stages of the debate, Democratic California state senator
Anthony C. Beilenson
introduced the "Therapeutic Abortion Act" in an effort to reduce the number of "back-room abortions" performed in California.[88]
The state legislature sent the bill to Reagan's desk where, after many days of indecision, he signed it on June 14, 1967.[93]
About two million abortions would be performed as a result, mostly because of a provision in the bill allowing abortions for the well-being of the mother.[93]
Reagan had been in office for only four months when he signed the bill, and later stated that had he been more experienced as governor, he would not have signed it. After he recognized what he called the "consequences" of the bill, he announced that he was pro-life.[93]
He maintained that position later in his political career, writing extensively about abortion.[94]

Despite an unsuccessful attempt to force a recall election on Reagan in 1968,[97]
he was re-elected governor in 1970, defeating "Big Daddy" Jesse M. Unruh. He chose not to seek a third term in the following election cycle. One of Reagan's greatest frustrations in office was the issue of
capital punishment, which he strongly supported.[27]
His efforts to enforce the state's laws in this area were thwarted when the Supreme Court of California
issued its People v. Anderson
decision, which invalidated all death sentences issued in California before 1972, though the decision was later overturned by a constitutional amendment. The only execution during Reagan's governorship was on April 12, 1967, when Aaron Mitchell's sentence was carried out by the state in
San Quentin's gas chamber.[98]

When Reagan was governor in 1969, he signed the Family Law Act, which was an amalgam of two bills that had been written and revised by the
California State Legislature
over more than two years.[99]
It became the first no-fault divorce
legislation in the United States.[100]
Years later, no-fault divorce became Reagan's greatest regret.[101]

Reagan's terms as governor helped to shape the policies he would pursue in his later political career as president. By campaigning on a platform of sending "the welfare bums back to work," he spoke out against the idea of the
welfare state. He also strongly advocated the Republican ideal of less government regulation of the economy, including that of undue federal taxation.[102]

Reagan did not seek re-election to a third term as governor in 1974; he was succeeded by the
Secretary of State, Democrat
Jerry Brown, who took office on January 6, 1975.

In 1976, Reagan challenged incumbent President
Gerald Ford
in a bid to become the Republican Party's candidate for president. Reagan soon established himself as the conservative candidate with the support of like-minded organizations such as the American Conservative Union, which became key components of his political base, while Ford was considered a more moderate Republican.[103]

Reagan's campaign relied on a strategy crafted by campaign manager
John Sears
of winning a few primaries early to damage the inevitability of Ford's likely nomination. Reagan won North Carolina, Texas, and California, but the strategy failed, as[104]
he ended up losing New Hampshire, Florida, and his native Illinois.[105]
The Texas campaign lent renewed hope to Reagan, when he swept all 96 delegates chosen in the May 1 primary, with four more awaiting at the state convention. Much of the credit for that victory came from the work of three co-chairmen, including Ernest Angelo, the mayor of
Midland, and
Ray Barnhart
of Houston, whom Reagan as President would appoint in 1981 as director of the
Federal Highway Administration.[106]

Reagan's concession speech emphasized the dangers of nuclear war and the threat posed by the Soviet Union. Though he lost the nomination, he received 307 write-in votes in New Hampshire, 388 votes as an Independent on Wyoming's ballot, and a single electoral vote from a
faithless elector
in the November election from the state of Washington,[107]
which Ford had won over Democratic challenger Jimmy Carter.

The 1980 presidential election featured Reagan against incumbent President
Jimmy Carter
and was conducted amid a multitude of domestic concerns as well as the ongoing Iran hostage crisis. Reagan's campaign stressed some of his fundamental principles: lower taxes to stimulate the economy,[110]
less government interference in people's lives,[111]states' rights,[112]
and a strong national defense.[113]

Reagan launched his campaign by declaring "I believe in states' rights." After receiving the Republican nomination, Reagan selected one of his opponents in the primaries,
George H. W. Bush, to be his running mate. His relaxed and confident appearance during the televised Reagan-Carter debate on October 28, boosted his popularity, and helped to widen his lead in the polls.[114]

On November 4, Reagan won a decisive victory over Carter, carrying 44 states and receiving 489 electoral votes, to Carter's 49 electoral votes from six states plus the District of Columbia. He won the popular vote by a more modest margin, receiving 50.7% to Carter's 41.0%, with independent
John B. Anderson
garnering 6.6%.[114][115][116]
Additionally, Republicans won a majority of seats in the Senate
for the first time since 1952, and gained 34 House seats, but the Democrats retained a majority.

During his presidency, Reagan pursued policies that reflected his personal belief in individual freedom; brought changes domestically, both to the U.S. economy and expanded military; and contributed to the end of the
Cold War.[117]
Termed the "Reagan Revolution," his presidency would reinvigorate American morale,[118][119]
reinvigorate the U.S. economy and reduce reliance upon government.[117]
As president, Reagan kept a diary in which he commented on daily occurrences of his presidency and his views on the issues of the day. The diaries were published in May 2007 in the bestselling book, The Reagan Diaries.[120]

First term

Ronald Reagan was 69 years old when he
sworn into office
for his first term on January 20, 1981. In his inaugural address (which Reagan himself wrote), he addressed the country's economic malaise, arguing: "In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem."[121]

Prayer in schools and a moment of silence

In 1981, Reagan became the first president to propose a constitutional amendment on
school prayer.[122]
Reagan's election reflected an opposition[122]
to the 1962 Supreme Court case Engel v. Vitale, prohibiting state officials from composing an official state prayer and requiring that it be recited in the public schools.[123]
Reagan's 1981 proposed amendment stated: "Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to prohibit individual or group prayer in public schools or other public institutions. No person shall be required by the United States or by any state to participate in prayer." In 1984, Reagan again raised the issue, asking Congress "why can't [the] freedom to acknowledge God be enjoyed again by children in every schoolroom across this land?"[124]
In 1985, Reagan expressed his disappointment that the Supreme Court ruling still bans a moment of silence for public schools, and said he had "an uphill battle."[125]
In 1987 Reagan renewed his call for Congress to support voluntary prayer in schools and end "the expulsion of God from America's classrooms."[126]
Critics argue that any governmental imposition of prayer on public school students is involuntary.[126]
No Supreme Court rulings suggest that students cannot engage in silent prayer on their own.[126]
During his term in office, Reagan campaigned vigorously to restore organized prayer to the schools, first as a moment of prayer and later as a Moment of Silence.[127]

Assassination attempt

On March 30, 1981 (shortly into the new administration), Reagan, his press secretary
James Brady, Washington police officer
Thomas Delahanty, and Secret Service agent
Tim McCarthy
were struck by gunfire from would-be assassin John Hinckley Jr.
outside the Washington Hilton
hotel. Although "close to death" upon arrival at George Washington University Hospital, Reagan was stabilized in the emergency room, then underwent emergency exploratory surgery.[128]
He recovered and was released from the hospital on April 11, becoming the first serving U.S. president to survive being shot in an assassination attempt.[129]
The attempt had great influence on Reagan's popularity; polls indicated his approval rating to be around 73%.[130]
Reagan believed that God had spared his life so that he might go on to fulfill a greater purpose.[131]

Air traffic controllers' strike

In 1981,
PATCO, the union of
federal air traffic controllers went on strike, violating a federal law prohibiting government unions from striking.[133]
Declaring the situation an emergency as described in the 1947 Taft–Hartley Act, Reagan stated that if the air traffic controllers "do not report for work within 48 hours, they have forfeited their jobs and will be terminated."[134]
They did not return and on August 5, Reagan fired 11,345 striking air traffic controllers who had ignored his order, and used supervisors and military controllers to handle the nation's commercial air traffic until new controllers could be hired and trained.[135]
A leading reference work on public administration concluded, "The firing of PATCO employees not only demonstrated a clear resolve by the president to take control of the bureaucracy, but it also sent a clear message to the private sector that unions no longer needed to be feared."[136]

"Reaganomics" and the economy

Outlining his plan for
Tax Reduction Legislation
from the Oval Office
in a televised address, July 1981

During
Jimmy Carter's last year in office (1980), inflation averaged 12.5%, compared with 4.4% during Reagan's last year in office (1988).[137]
During Reagan's administration, the unemployment rate declined from 7.5% to 5.4%, with the rate reaching highs of 10.8% in 1982 and 10.4% in 1983, averaging 7.5% over the eight years, and real GDP growth averaged 3.4% with a high of 8.6% in 1983, while nominal GDP growth averaged 7.4%, and peaked at 12.2% in 1982.[138][139][140]

Reagan implemented policies based on
supply-side economics, advocating a
laissez-faire
philosophy and free-market
fiscal policy,[141]
seeking to stimulate the economy with large, across-the-board tax cuts.[142][143]
He also supported returning the United States to some sort of gold standard, and successfully urged Congress to establish the U.S. Gold Commission to study how one could be implemented. Citing the economic theories of
Arthur Laffer, Reagan promoted the proposed tax cuts as potentially stimulating the economy enough to expand the tax base, offsetting the revenue loss due to reduced rates of taxation, a theory that entered political discussion as the
Laffer curve. Reaganomics was the subject of debate with supporters pointing to improvements in certain key economic indicators as evidence of success, and critics pointing to large increases in federal budget deficits and the national debt.[144]
His policy of "peace through strength" resulted in a record peacetime defense buildup including a 40% real increase in defense spending between 1981 and 1985.[145]

Conversely, Congress passed and Reagan signed into law tax increases of some nature in every year from 1981 to 1987 to continue funding such government programs as
Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982
(TEFRA), Social Security, and the
Deficit Reduction Act of 1984
(DEFRA).[148][149]
TEFRA was the "largest peacetime tax increase in American history."[149][150][151][152]
Gross domestic product (GDP) growth recovered strongly after the early 1980s recession
ended in 1982, and grew during his eight years in office at an annual rate of 7.9% per year, with a high of 12.2% growth in 1981.[153]
Unemployment peaked at 10.8% monthly rate in December 1982—higher than any time since the Great Depression—then dropped during the rest of Reagan's presidency.[154]
Sixteen million new jobs were created, while inflation significantly decreased.[155]
The Tax Reform Act of 1986, another bipartisan effort championed by Reagan, simplified the tax code by reducing the number of tax brackets to four and slashing a number of tax breaks. The top rate was dropped to 28%, but capital gains taxes were increased on those with the highest incomes from 20% to 28%. The increase of the lowest tax bracket from 11% to 15% was more than offset by expansion of the personal exemption,
standard deduction, and
earned income tax credit. The net result was the removal of six million poor Americans from the income tax roll and a reduction of income tax liability at all income levels.[156][157]

The net effect of all Reagan-era tax bills was a 1% decrease in government revenues when compared to Treasury Department revenue estimates from the Administration's first post-enactment January budgets.[158]
However, federal income tax receipts increased from 1980 to 1989, rising from $308.7 billion to $549 billion[159]
or an average annual rate of 8.2% (2.5% attributed to higher Social Security receipts), and federal outlays grew at an annual rate of 7.1%.[160][161]

Addressing Congress on the
Program for Economic Recovery, April 28, 1981 (a few weeks after surviving an
assassination attempt)

Reagan's policies proposed that economic growth would occur when marginal tax rates were low enough to spur investment, which would then lead to higher employment and wages. Critics labeled this "trickle-down economics"—the belief that tax policies that benefit the wealthy will create a "trickle-down" effect to the poor.[162]
Questions arose whether Reagan's policies benefited the wealthy more than those living in poverty,[163]
and many poor and minority citizens viewed Reagan as indifferent to their struggles.[163]
These views were exacerbated by the fact that Reagan's economic regimen included freezing the minimum wage
at $3.35 an hour, slashing federal assistance to local governments
by 60%, cutting the budget for public housing
and Section 8 rent subsidies
in half, and eliminating the antipoverty Community Development Block Grant
program.[164]
The widening gap between the rich and poor had already begun during the 1970s before Reagan's economic policies took effect.[165]
Along with Reagan's 1981 cut in the top regular tax rate on unearned income, he reduced the maximum capital gains rate to 20%.[166]
Reagan later set tax rates on capital gains at the same level as the rates on ordinary income like salaries and wages, with both topping out at 28%.[167]
Reagan is viewed as an antitax hero despite raising taxes eleven times over the course of his presidency, all in the name of fiscal responsibility.[168]
According to Paul Krugman, "Over all, the 1982 tax increase undid about a third of the 1981 cut; as a share of GDP, the increase was substantially larger than
Mr. Clinton's 1993 tax increase."[169]
According to historian and domestic policy adviser Bruce Bartlett, Reagan's tax increases over the course of his presidency took back half of the 1981 tax cut.[170]

Reagan was opposed to government intervention, and he cut the budgets of non-military[171]
programs[172]
including Medicaid,
food stamps, federal education programs[171]
and the EPA.[173]
He protected entitlement programs such as Social Security
and Medicare,[174]
but his administration attempted to purge many people with disabilities from the Social Security disability rolls.[175]

The administration's stance toward the
savings and loan
industry contributed to the savings and loan crisis. A minority of the critics of Reaganomics also suggested that the policies partially influenced the
stock market crash of 1987,[176]
but there is no consensus regarding a single source for the crash.[177]
In order to cover newly spawned federal budget deficits, the United States borrowed heavily both domestically and abroad, raising the national debt
from $997 billion to $2.85 trillion.[178]
Reagan described the new debt as the "greatest disappointment" of his presidency.[155]

He reappointed
Paul Volcker
as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and in 1987 he appointed monetarist
Alan Greenspan
to succeed him. Reagan ended the price controls
on domestic oil that had contributed to the energy crises of 1973–74 and the summer of 1979.[179][180]
The price of oil subsequently dropped, and the 1980s did not see the fuel shortages that the 1970s had.[180]
Reagan also fulfilled a 1980 campaign promise to repeal the windfall profits tax
in 1988, which had previously increased dependence on foreign oil.[181]
Some economists, such as Nobel Prize winners Milton Friedman
and Robert Mundell, argue that Reagan's tax policies invigorated America's economy and contributed to the economic boom of the 1990s.[182]
Other economists, such as Nobel Prize winner Robert Solow, argue that Reagan's deficits were a major reason his successor, George H. W. Bush, reneged on a
campaign promise
and resorted to raising taxes.[182]

During Reagan's presidency, a program was initiated within the
United States Intelligence Community
to ensure America's economic strength. The program, Project Socrates, developed and demonstrated the means required for the United States to generate and lead the next evolutionary leap in technology acquisition and utilization for a competitive advantage—automated innovation. To ensure that the United States acquired the maximum benefit from automated innovation, Reagan, during his second term, had an executive order drafted to create a new federal agency to implement the Project Socrates results on a nationwide basis. However, Reagan's term came to end before the executive order could be coordinated and signed, and the incoming Bush administration, labeling Project Socrates as "industrial policy," had it terminated.[183][184]

Civil rights

The Reagan administration was often criticized for inadequately enforcing, if not actively undermining,
civil rights
legislation.[185][186]
In 1982, he signed a bill extending the Voting Rights Act
for 25 years after a grass-roots lobbying and legislative campaign forced him to abandon his plan to ease that law's restrictions.[187]
He also signed legislation establishing a federal Martin Luther King holiday, though he did so with reservations.[188]
In 1988, he vetoed
the Civil Rights Restoration Act, but his veto was overridden by Congress. Reagan had argued that the legislation infringed on
states' rights
and the rights of churches and business owners.[189]

Escalation of the Cold War

Reagan escalated the
Cold War, accelerating a reversal from the policy of
détente
that began during the Carter Administration, following the AfghanSaur Revolution
and subsequent Soviet invasion.[191]
He ordered a massive buildup of the United States Armed Forces[145]
and implemented new policies that were directed towards the Soviet Union; he revived the B-1 Lancer
program that had been canceled by the Carter administration, and he produced the
MX missile.[192]
In response to Soviet deployment of the SS-20, Reagan oversaw
NATO's deployment of the
Pershing missile
in West Germany.[193]
In 1982 Reagan tried to cut off Moscow's access to hard currency by impeding its proposed gas line to Western Europe. It hurt the Soviet economy, but it also caused ill will among American allies in Europe who counted on that revenue. Reagan retreated on this issue.[194][195]

In 1984, journalist
Nicholas Lemann
interviewed Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger
and summarized the strategy of the Reagan administration to roll back the Soviet Union:

Their society is economically weak, and it lacks the wealth, education, and technology to enter the information age. They have thrown everything into military production, and their society is starting to show terrible stress as a result. They can't sustain military production the way we can. Eventually it will break them, and then there will be just one superpower in a safe world—if, only if, we can keep spending.[196]

Lemann noted that when he wrote that in 1984, he thought the Reaganites were living in a fantasy world. But by 2016, Lemann stated that the passage represents "a fairly uncontroversial description of what Reagan actually did."[196]

Meeting with leaders of the Afghan
Mujahideen
in the Oval Office, 1983

After Soviet fighters downed
Korean Air Lines Flight 007
near Moneron Island
on September 1, 1983, carrying 269 people, including Georgia congressman Larry McDonald, Reagan labeled the act a "massacre" and declared that the Soviets had turned "against the world and the moral precepts which guide human relations among people everywhere."[202]
The Reagan administration responded to the incident by suspending all Soviet passenger air service to the United States, and dropped several agreements being negotiated with the Soviets, wounding them financially.[202]
As a result of the shootdown, and the cause of KAL 007's going astray thought to be inadequacies related to its navigational system, Reagan announced on September 16, 1983, that the Global Positioning System
would be made available for civilian use, free of charge, once completed in order to avert similar navigational errors in future.[203][204]

Reagan deployed the CIA's
Special Activities Division
to Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were instrumental in training, equipping and leading Mujahideen
forces against the Soviet Army.[207][208]
President Reagan's Covert Action program has been given credit for assisting in ending the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan,[209]
though some of the United States funded armaments introduced then would later pose a threat to U.S. troops in the 2001 War in Afghanistan.[210]
The CIA also began sharing information with the Iranian government, which it was secretly courting. In one instance, in 1982, this practice enabled the government to identify and purge
communists
from its ministries, and to virtually eliminate the pro-Soviet infrastructure in Iran.[211]

In March 1983, Reagan introduced the
Strategic Defense Initiative, a defense project[212]
that would have used ground- and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear ballistic missiles.[213]
Reagan believed that this defense shield could make nuclear war impossible.[212][214]
There was much disbelief surrounding the program's scientific feasibility, leading opponents to dub SDI "Star Wars" and argue that its technological objective was unattainable.[212]
The Soviets became concerned about the possible effects SDI would have;[215]
leader Yuri Andropov
said it would put "the entire world in jeopardy."[216]
For those reasons, David Gergen, former aide to President Reagan, believes that in retrospect, SDI hastened the end of the Cold War.[217]

Though supported by leading
American conservatives
who argued that Reagan's foreign policy strategy was essential to protecting U.S. security interests, critics labeled the administration's foreign policy initiatives as aggressive and imperialistic, and chided them as "warmongering."[215]
The administration was also heavily criticized for backing anti-communist leaders accused of severe human rights violations, such as
Hissène Habré
of Chad[218]
and Efraín Ríos Montt
of Guatemala.[219][220]
During the 16 months (1982–1983) Montt was President of Guatemala, the
Guatemalan military
was accused of genocide
for massacres of members of the Ixil people
and other indigenous groups. Reagan had said that Montt was getting a "bum rap,"[221]
and described him as "a man of great personal integrity."[222]
Previous human rights violations had prompted the United States to cut off aid to the Guatemalan government; but the Reagan administration appealed to Congress to restart military aid. Although unsuccessful with that, the administration was successful, however, in providing nonmilitary aid such as USAID.[221][223]

Operation Urgent Fury (Grenada)

On October 25, 1983, Reagan ordered U.S. forces to invade Grenada (codenamed "Operation Urgent Fury") where a 1979
coup d'état
had established an independent non-alignedMarxist–Leninist
government. A formal appeal from the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States
(OECS) led to the intervention of U.S. forces; President Reagan also cited an allegedly regional threat posed by a Soviet-Cuban military build-up in the Caribbean and concern for the safety of several hundred American medical students at St. George's University as adequate reasons to invade. Operation Urgent Fury
was the first major military operation conducted by U.S. forces since the Vietnam War, several days of fighting commenced, resulting in a U.S. victory,[226]
with 19 American fatalities and 116 wounded American soldiers.[227]
In mid-December, after a new government was appointed by the governor-general, U.S. forces withdrew.[226]

Reagan accepted the Republican nomination in
Dallas, Texas. He proclaimed that it was "morning again in America," regarding the recovering economy and the dominating performance by the U.S. athletes at the
1984 Summer Olympics, among other things.[23]
He became the first president to open an Olympic Games held in the United States.[228]

Reagan's opponent in the 1984 presidential election was former Vice President
Walter Mondale. With questions about Reagan's age, and a weak performance in the first presidential debate, his ability to perform the duties of president for another term was questioned. His apparent confused and forgetful behavior was evident to his supporters; they had previously known him clever and witty. Rumors began to circulate that he had Alzheimer's disease.[229][230]
Reagan rebounded in the second debate, and confronted questions about his age, quipping, "I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience," which generated applause and laughter, even from Mondale himself.[231]

That November, Reagan won a landslide re-election victory, carrying 49 of the 50 states, while Mondale won only Minnesota, his home state, and the District of Columbia.[114]
Reagan won 525 of the 538 electoral votes, the most of any presidential candidate in U.S. history,[232]
and also received 58.8% of the popular vote to Mondale's 40.6%. His popular vote margin of victory, nearly 16.9 million votes (54.4 million for Reagan to 37.5 million for Mondale),[233][234]
was exceeded only by Richard Nixon
in his 1972
victory over George McGovern.[114]

Second term

Reagan was sworn in as president for the second time on January 20, 1985, in a private ceremony at the
White House. To date, at 73 years of age, he is the oldest person to take the presidential oath of office. Because January 20 fell on a Sunday, a public celebration was not held but took place in the
Capitol rotunda
the following day. January 21 was one of the coldest days on record
in Washington, D.C.; due to poor weather, inaugural celebrations were held inside the Capitol. In the weeks that followed, he shook up his staff somewhat, moving White House Chief of StaffJames Baker
to Secretary of the Treasury and naming Treasury Secretary Donald Regan, a former
Merrill Lynch
officer, Chief of Staff.[235][235]

The disintegration of the
Space Shuttle Challenger
on January 28, 1986, proved a pivotal moment in Reagan's presidency. All seven astronauts
aboard were killed.[236]
On the night of the disaster, Reagan delivered a speech, written by Peggy Noonan, in which he said:

The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave ... We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of Earth' to 'touch the face of God.'[237]

1985 placing of wreath at cemetery in Bitburg, Germany

In February 1985, the administration accepted an invitation for Reagan to visit a German military cemetery in
Bitburg
and to place a wreath alongside West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Deputy Chief of Staff
Michael Deaver
was given assurances by a German head of protocol that no war criminals were buried there. It was later determined that the cemetery held the graves of 49 members of the Waffen-SS. What neither Deaver nor other administration officials initially realized was that many Germans drew a distinction between the regular SS, who typically were composed of Nazi true believers, and the Waffen-SS which were attached to military units and composed of conscripted soldiers.[239]

As the controversy brewed in April 1985, Reagan issued a statement that called the Nazi soldiers buried in that cemetery as themselves "victims," a designation which ignited a stir over whether Reagan had equated the SS men to victims of
the Holocaust.[240]Pat Buchanan, Reagan's Director of Communications, argued that the president did not equate the SS members with the actual Holocaust, but as victims of the ideology of Nazism.[241]
Now strongly urged to cancel the visit,[242]
the president responded that it would be wrong to back down on a promise he had made to Chancellor Kohl. On May 5, 1985, President Reagan and Chancellor Kohl first visited the site of the former Nazi Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and then the Bitburg cemetery where, along with two military generals, they did place a wreath.[243][244]

War on Drugs

Reagan announced a
War on Drugs
in 1982, in response to concerns about the increasing crack epidemic. Though Nixon had previously declared a war on drugs, Reagan advocated more militant policies.[245]

He said that "drugs were menacing our society" and promised to fight for drug-free schools and workplaces, expanded drug treatment, stronger law enforcement and drug interdiction efforts, and greater public awareness.[246][247]

In 1986, Reagan signed a drug enforcement bill that budgeted $1.7 billion (equivalent to $3.8 billion in 2017) to fund the War on Drugs and specified a mandatory minimum penalty for drug offenses.[248]
The bill was criticized for promoting significant racial disparities in the prison population[248]
and critics also charged that the policies did little to reduce the availability of drugs on the street, while resulting in a great financial burden for America.[249]
Defenders of the effort point to success in reducing rates of adolescent drug use:[250]
marijuana use among high-school seniors declined from 33% in 1980 to 12% in 1991.[251]First LadyNancy Reagan
made the War on Drugs her main priority by founding the "Just Say No" drug awareness campaign, which aimed to discourage children and teenagers from engaging in
recreational drug use
by offering various ways of saying "no." Nancy Reagan traveled to 65 cities in 33 states, raising awareness about the dangers of drugs including alcohol.[252]

Response to AIDS epidemic

According to AIDS activist organizations such as
ACT UP, the Reagan administration largely ignored the
AIDS crisis, which began to unfold in the United States in 1981, the same year Reagan took office. They also claim AIDS research was chronically underfunded during Reagan's administration, and requests for more funding by doctors at the
Centers for Disease Control
(CDC) were routinely denied.[253][254]

By the time President Reagan had given his first prepared speech on the epidemic, some six years into his presidency, 36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with AIDS and 20,849 had died of it.[255]
By the end of 1989, the year Reagan left office, 115,786 people had been diagnosed with AIDS in the United States, and more than 70,000 of them had died of it.

Others however point out that federal funding for AIDS-related programs was $2.3 billion in 1989 and nearly $6 billion total over his presidency. In a September 1985 press conference Reagan said: "this is a top priority with us...there's no question about the seriousness of this and the need to find an answer."[256]Gary Bauer, who was Reagan's domestic policy adviser near the end of his second term, similarly argued that Reagan's belief in
cabinet government
led him to assign the job of speaking out against AIDS to his Surgeon General and Secretary of Health and Human Services.[257]

Relations between Libya and the United States under President Reagan were continually contentious, beginning with the
Gulf of Sidra incident
in 1981; by 1982, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi
was considered by the CIA to be, along with USSR leader Leonid Brezhnev
and Cuban leader Fidel Castro, part of a group known as the "unholy trinity" and was also labeled as "our international public enemy number one" by a CIA official.[258]
These tensions were later revived in early April 1986, when a bomb exploded in a Berlin discothèque, resulting in the injury of 63 American military personnel and death of one serviceman. Stating that there was "irrefutable proof" that Libya had directed the "terrorist bombing," Reagan authorized the use of force against the country. In the late evening of April 15, 1986, the United States launched a series of
airstrikes
on ground targets in Libya.[259][260]

Britain's prime minister,
Margaret Thatcher, allowed the U.S. Air Force to use Britain's air bases to launch the attack, on the justification that the UK was supporting America's right to self-defense under Article 51 of the
United Nations Charter.[260]
The attack was designed to halt Gaddafi's "ability to export terrorism," offering him "incentives and reasons to alter his criminal behavior."[259]
The president addressed the nation from the Oval Office
after the attacks had commenced, stating, "When our citizens are attacked or abused anywhere in the world on the direct orders of hostile regimes, we will respond so long as I'm in this office."[260]
The attack was condemned by many countries. By a vote of 79 in favor to 28 against with 33 abstentions, the United Nations General Assembly
adopted resolution 41/38 which "condemns the military attack perpetrated against the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya on April 15, 1986, which constitutes a violation of the Charter of the United Nations and of international law."[261]

Immigration

Reagan signed the
Immigration Reform and Control Act
in 1986. The act made it illegal to knowingly hire or recruit illegal immigrants, required employers to attest to their employees' immigration status, and granted
amnesty
to approximately three million illegal immigrants who entered the United States before January 1, 1982, and had lived in the country continuously. Critics argue that the employer sanctions were without teeth and failed to stem illegal immigration.[262]
Upon signing the act at a ceremony held beside the newly refurbished Statue of Liberty, Reagan said, "The legalization provisions in this act will go far to improve the lives of a class of individuals who now must hide in the shadows, without access to many of the benefits of a free and open society. Very soon many of these men and women will be able to step into the sunlight and, ultimately, if they choose, they may become Americans."[263]
Reagan also said, "The employer sanctions program is the keystone and major element. It will remove the incentive for illegal immigration by eliminating the job opportunities which draw illegal aliens here."[263]

President Reagan professed that he was unaware of the plot's existence. He opened his own investigation and appointed two Republicans and one Democrat,
John Tower,
Brent Scowcroft
and Edmund Muskie, respectively, to investigate the scandal. The commission could not find direct evidence that Reagan had prior knowledge of the program, but criticized him heavily for his disengagement from managing his staff, making the diversion of funds possible.[270]
A separate report by Congress concluded that "If the president did not know what his national security advisers were doing, he should have."[270]
Reagan's popularity declined from 67% to 46% in less than a week, the greatest and quickest decline ever for a president.[271]
The scandal resulted in fourteen indictments within Reagan's staff, and eleven convictions.[272]

Many Central Americans criticize Reagan for his support of the Contras, calling him an anti-communist zealot, blinded to human rights abuses, while others say he "saved Central America."[273]Daniel Ortega,
Sandinistan
and president of Nicaragua, said that he hoped God would forgive Reagan for his "dirty war against Nicaragua."[273]

End of the Cold War

Until the early 1980s, the United States had relied on the qualitative superiority of its weapons to essentially frighten the Soviets, but the gap had been narrowed.[274]
Although the Soviet Union did not accelerate military spending after President Reagan's military buildup,[275]
their large military expenses, in combination with collectivized agriculture
and inefficient planned manufacturing, were a heavy burden for the
Soviet economy. At the same time, oil prices in 1985 fell to one-third of the previous level; oil was the main source of Soviet export revenues. These factors contributed to a stagnant Soviet economy during
Gorbachev's tenure.[276]

Reagan was deeply committed first to the abolition of nuclear weapons, worldwide. Second, he was committed (thanks to his California friend
Edward Teller, The father of the hydrogen bomb) to building a defense against nuclear weapons, called the
Strategic Defense Initiative
(SDI, but everyone nicknamed it "Star Wars.") American scientists were not sure that SDI would work, but they were sure it would cost in the trillions of dollars. Reagan reassured Congressman: think of it as billions of new dollars spent in your district. If SDI worked, the Soviet nuclear armed missiles, thousands of them, would be worthless—they would all be shot down. Gorbachev made it his highest priority to get Reagan to abandon SDI.

Meanwhile, Reagan escalated the rhetoric. In his famous 1983 speech to religious fundamentalists he outlined his strategy for victory. First, he labeled the Soviet system an "Evil empire" and a failure—its demise would be a godsend for the world. Second, Reagan explained his strategy was an arms buildup that would leave the Soviets far behind, with no choice but to negotiate arms reduction. Finally, displaying his characteristic optimism, he praised liberal democracy and promised that such a system eventually would triumph over Soviet communism.[277][278]

Reagan appreciated the revolutionary change in the direction of the Soviet policy with
Mikhail Gorbachev, and shifted to diplomacy, with a view to encourage the Soviet leader to pursue substantial arms agreements.[279]
He and Gorbachev held four summit conferences
between 1985 and 1988: the first
in Geneva, Switzerland, the
second
in Reykjavík, Iceland, the third in Washington, D.C., and the fourth in Moscow.[280]
Reagan believed that if he could persuade the Soviets to allow for more democracy and free speech, this would lead to reform and the end of Communism.[281]
The critical summit was at Reykjavík in October 1986, where they met alone, with translators but with no aides. To the astonishment of the world, and the chagrin of Reagan's most conservative supporters, they agreed to abolish all nuclear weapons. Gorbachev then asked the end of SDI. Reagan said no, claiming that it was defensive only, and that he would share the secrets with the Soviets. No deal was achieved.[282]

Speaking at the
Berlin Wall
on June 12, 1987, Reagan challenged Gorbachev to go further, saying "General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

At Gorbachev's visit to Washington in 1987, he and Reagan signed the
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty
(INF Treaty) at the White House, which eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons.[283]
The two leaders laid the framework for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START I; Reagan insisted that the name of the treaty be changed from Strategic Arms Limitation Talks to Strategic Arms Reduction Talks.[284]

When Reagan visited Moscow for the fourth summit in 1988, he was viewed as a celebrity by the Soviets. A journalist asked the president if he still considered the Soviet Union the evil empire. "No," he replied, "I was talking about another time, another era."[285]
At Gorbachev's request, Reagan gave a speech on free markets at the Moscow State University.[286]

Health

Early in his presidency, Reagan started wearing a custom-made, technologically advanced
hearing aid, first in his right ear[287]
and later in his left ear as well.[288]
His decision to go public in 1983 regarding his wearing the small, audio-amplifying device boosted their sales.[289]

On July 13, 1985, Reagan underwent surgery at
Bethesda Naval Hospital
to remove cancerous polyps
from his colon. He relinquished presidential power to the Vice President for eight hours in a similar procedure as outlined in the
25th Amendment, which he specifically avoided invoking.[290]
The surgery lasted just under three hours and was successful.[291]
Reagan resumed the powers of the presidency later that day.[292]
In August of that year, he underwent an operation to remove skin cancer cells from his nose.[293]
In October, more skin cancer cells were detected on his nose and removed.[294]

In January 1987, Reagan underwent surgery for an enlarged
prostate
that caused further worries about his health. No cancerous growths were found and he was not sedated during the operation.[295]
In July of that year, aged 76, he underwent a third skin cancer operation on his nose.[296]

Assault

On April 13, 1992, Reagan was assaulted by an anti-nuclear protester during a luncheon speech while accepting an award from the
National Association of Broadcasters
in Las Vegas.[317][318]
The protester, 41-year old Richard Paul Springer, smashed a 2-foot-high (60 cm) 30-pound (13.5 kg) crystal statue of an eagle that the broadcasters had given the former president. Flying shards of glass hit Reagan, but he was not injured. Using media credentials, Springer intended to announce government plans for an underground nuclear weapons test in the Nevada desert the following day.[319]
Springer was the founder of an anti-nuclear group called the 100th Monkey. Following his arrest on assault charges, a Secret Service spokesman could not explain how Springer got past the federal agents who guarded Reagan's life at all times.[320]
Later, Springer pled guilty to reduced charges and said he hadn't meant to hurt Reagan through his actions. He pled guilty to a misdemeanor federal charge of interfering with the Secret Service, but other felony charges of assault and resisting officers were dropped.[321]

Alzheimer's disease

Announcement and reaction: 1994

In August 1994, at the age of 83, Reagan was diagnosed with
Alzheimer's disease,[322]
an incurable neurological disorder which destroys brain cells and ultimately causes death.[322][323]
In November, he informed the nation through a handwritten letter,[322]
writing in part:

I have recently been told that I am one of the millions of Americans who will be afflicted with Alzheimer's Disease ... At the moment I feel just fine. I intend to live the remainder of the years God gives me on this earth doing the things I have always done ... I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead. Thank you, my friends. May God always bless you.[324]

After his diagnosis, letters of support from well-wishers poured into his California home.[325]

But there was also speculation over how long Reagan had demonstrated symptoms of mental degeneration.[326]
Not long after the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, at a reception for mayors, Reagan greeted his
Secretary of Housing and Urban DevelopmentSamuel Pierce
in 1981 by saying "How are you, Mr Mayor? How are things in your city?",[327][328]
although he later realized his mistake.[329]
In a 2011 book, Reagan's son Ron said he had suspected early signs of his father's dementia as early as 1984.[1]
Former CBSWhite House correspondentLesley Stahl
recounted that, in her final meeting with the president in 1986, Reagan did not seem to know who Stahl was, and that she came close to reporting that Reagan was senile, but at the end of the meeting, Reagan had regained his alertness.[330]
However, Dr. Lawrence K. Altman, a physician employed as a reporter for The New York Times, noted that "the line between mere forgetfulness and the beginning of Alzheimer's can be fuzzy,"[331]
and all four of Reagan's White House doctors said that they saw no evidence of Alzheimer's while he was president.[331]
Dr. John E. Hutton, Reagan's primary physician from 1984 to 1989, said the president "absolutely" did not "show any signs of dementia or Alzheimer's."[331]
His former Chief of Staff James Baker
considered "ludicrous" the idea that Reagan slept during cabinet meetings.[332]
Other staff members, former aides, and friends said they saw no indication of Alzheimer's while he was president.[331]
Reagan did experience occasional memory lapses, though, especially with names.[331]
Reagan's doctors say that he only began exhibiting overt symptoms of the illness in late 1992[333]
or 1993,[331]
several years after he had left office. For example, Reagan repeated a toast to Margaret Thatcher, with identical words and gestures, at his 82nd-birthday party on February 6, 1993.[334]

Complicating the picture, Reagan suffered an episode of head trauma in July 1989, five years before his diagnosis. After being thrown from a horse in Mexico, a
subdural hematoma
was found and surgically treated later in the year.[322][323]
Nancy Reagan, citing what doctors told her, asserted that her husband's 1989 fall hastened the onset of Alzheimer's disease,[323]
although acute brain injury has not been conclusively proven to accelerate Alzheimer's or dementia.[335][336]
Reagan's one-time physician Daniel Ruge has said it is possible, but not certain, that the horse accident affected the course of Reagan's memory.[333]

Progression: 1994–2004

As the years went on, the disease slowly destroyed Reagan's mental capacity.[331]
He was only able to recognize a few people, including his wife, Nancy.[331]
He remained active, however; he took walks through parks near his home and on beaches, played golf regularly, and until 1999 he often went to his office in nearby Century City.[331]

Reagan suffered a fall at his Bel Air home on January 13, 2001, resulting in a broken hip.[337]
The fracture was repaired the following day[338]
and the 89-year-old Reagan returned home later that week, although he faced difficult physical therapy at home.[339]
On February 6, 2001, Reagan reached the age of 90, becoming the third former president to do so (the other two being John Adams
and Herbert Hoover, with
Gerald Ford,
George H. W. Bush
and Jimmy Carter
later surpassing 90).[340]
Reagan's public appearances became much less frequent with the progression of the disease, and as a result, his family decided that he would live in quiet semi-isolation with his wife Nancy. She told CNN's Larry King
in 2001 that very few visitors were allowed to see her husband because she felt that "Ronnie would want people to remember him as he was."[341]
After her husband's diagnosis and death, Nancy Reagan became a stem-cell research
advocate, urging Congress
and President George W. Bush
to support federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, something Bush opposed. In 2009, she praised President Barack Obama
for lifting restrictions on such research.[342]
Nancy Reagan said that she believed it could lead to a cure for Alzheimer's.[343]

Death and funeral

Reagan died of
pneumonia, complicated by Alzheimer's disease,[344]
at his home in the Bel Air
district of Los Angeles, California, on the afternoon of June 5, 2004.[345]
A short time after his death, Nancy Reagan
released a statement saying, "My family and I would like the world to know that President Ronald Reagan has died after 10 years of Alzheimer's disease at 93 years of age. We appreciate everyone's prayers."[345]
President George W. Bush
declared June 11 a National Day of Mourning,[346]
and international tributes
came in from around the world.[347]
Reagan's body was taken to the Kingsley and Gates Funeral Home in Santa Monica, California later in the day, where well-wishers paid tribute by laying flowers and American flags in the grass.[348]
On June 7, his body was removed and taken to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, where a brief family funeral was held conducted by Pastor
Michael Wenning. His body lay in repose in the Library lobby until June 9; over 100,000 people viewed the coffin.[349]

After the funeral, the Reagan entourage was flown back to the Ronald W. Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, where another service was held, and President Reagan was interred.[354]
At the time of his death, Reagan was the longest-lived president
in U.S. history, having lived 93 years and 120 days (2 years, 8 months, and 23 days longer than John Adams, whose record he surpassed). He was the first U.S. president to die in the 21st century, and his was the first state funeral in the United States since that of President
Lyndon B. Johnson
in 1973.

His burial site is inscribed with the words he delivered at the opening of the
Ronald Reagan Presidential Library: "I know in my heart that man is good, that what is right will always eventually triumph and that there is purpose and worth to each and every life."[355]

Legacy

Since Reagan left office in 1989, substantial debate has occurred among scholars, historians, and the general public surrounding his legacy.[356]
Supporters have pointed to a more efficient and prosperous economy as a result of Reagan's economic policies,[357]
foreign policy triumphs including a peaceful end to the Cold War,[358]
and a restoration of American pride and morale.[119]
Proponents say that he had an unabated and passionate love for the United States which restored faith in the American Dream,[359]
after a decline in American confidence and self-respect under Jimmy Carter's perceived weak leadership, particularly during the
Iran hostage crisis, as well as his gloomy, dreary outlook for the future of the United States during the 1980 election.[360]
Critics point out that Reagan's economic policies resulted in rising budget deficits,[155]
a wider gap in wealth, and an increase in
homelessness[164]
and that the Iran–Contra affair lowered American credibility.[361]

Opinions of Reagan's legacy among the country's leading policy makers and journalists differ as well.
Edwin Feulner, president of
The Heritage Foundation, said that Reagan "helped create a safer, freer world" and said of his economic policies: "He took an America suffering from 'malaise'... and made its citizens believe again in their destiny."[362]
However, Mark Weisbrot, co-Director of the
Center for Economic and Policy Research, contended that Reagan's "economic policies were mostly a failure"[363]
while Howard Kurtz
of The Washington Post
opined that Reagan was "a far more controversial figure in his time than the largely gushing obits on television would suggest."[364]

Despite the continuing debate surrounding his legacy, many conservative and liberal scholars agree that Reagan has been the most influential president since
Franklin D. Roosevelt, leaving his imprint on American politics, diplomacy, culture, and economics through his effective communication and pragmatic compromising.[365]
Since he left office, historians have reached a consensus,[366]
as summarized by British historian M. J. Heale, who finds that scholars now concur that Reagan rehabilitated conservatism, turned the nation to the right, practiced a considerably pragmatic conservatism that balanced ideology and the constraints of politics, revived faith in the presidency and in American exceptionalism, and contributed to victory in the Cold War.[367]

Cold War

In 2017 a C-SPAN survey of scholars – most of whom opposed his specific policies—ranked Reagan in terms of leadership in comparison with all 42 presidents. He ranked number nine in international relations.[368][369]

Reagan's major achievement was that the USSR and Soviet Communism collapsed, causing the U.S. to become the world's only superpower. His admirers say he won the Cold War.[370]
After 40 years of high tension, the USSR pulled back in the last years of Reagan's second term. In 1989 the Kremlin lost control of all its East European satellites. In 1991, Communism was overthrown in the USSR, and on December 25, 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. The resulting states were no threat to the U.S. Reagan's exact role is debated, with many believing that Reagan's defense policies, economic policies, military policies and hard line rhetoric against the Soviet Union and Communism, as well as summits with General Secretary Gorbachev played a significant part in ending the Cold War.[163][279]

He was the first president to reject containment and détente and to put into practice the concept that the Soviet Union could be defeated rather than simply negotiated with, a post-Détente strategy,[279]
a conviction that was vindicated by Gennadi Gerasimov, the Foreign Ministry spokesman under Gorbachev, who said that the
Strategic Defense Initiative
was "very successful blackmail. ...The Soviet economy couldn't endure such competition."[371]
Reagan's aggressive rhetoric toward the USSR had mixed effects; Jeffery W. Knopf observes that being labeled "evil" probably made no difference to the Soviets but gave encouragement to the East-European citizens opposed to communism.[279]

General Secretary Gorbachev said of his former rival's Cold War role: "[He was] a man who was instrumental in bringing about the end of the Cold War,"[372]
and deemed him "a great president."[372]
Gorbachev does not acknowledge a win or loss in the war, but rather a peaceful end; he said he was not intimidated by Reagan's harsh rhetoric.[373]
Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, said of Reagan, "he warned that the Soviet Union had an insatiable drive for military power... but he also sensed it was being eaten away by systemic failures impossible to reform."[374]
She later said, "Ronald Reagan had a higher claim than any other leader to have won the Cold War for liberty and he did it without a shot being fired."[375]
Said Brian Mulroney, former
Prime Minister of Canada: "He enters history as a strong and dramatic player [in the Cold War]."[376]
Former President Lech Wałęsa
of Poland acknowledged, "Reagan was one of the world leaders who made a major contribution to communism's collapse."[377]
That Reagan had little or no effect in ending the Cold War is argued with equal weight; that Communism's internal weakness had become apparent, and the Soviet Union would have collapsed in the end regardless of who was in power.[279]
President Harry S. Truman's policy of containment is also regarded as a force behind the fall of the USSR, and the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
undermined the Soviet system itself.[378]

Domestic and political legacy

Reagan reshaped the Republican party, led the modern
conservative movement, and altered the political dynamic of the United States.[379]
More men voted Republican under Reagan, and Reagan tapped into religious voters.[379]
The so-called "Reagan Democrats" were a result of his presidency.[379]

After leaving office, Reagan became an iconic influence within the Republican party.[380]
His policies and beliefs have been frequently invoked by Republican presidential candidates
since 1988.[23]
The 2008 Republican presidential candidates
were no exception, for they aimed to liken themselves to him during the primary debates, even imitating his campaign strategies.[381]
Republican nominee John McCain
frequently said that he came to office as "a foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution."[382]
Reagan's most famous statement regarding the role of smaller government was that "Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem."[383]

Reagan has become an iconic figure in the Republican Party. Praise for his accomplishments were part of the standard GOP rhetoric a quarter century after his retirement.
Washington Post
reporter Carlos Lozada noted how the main Republican contenders in the 2016 presidential race adopted "standard GOP Gipper worship." The contenders included even Donald Trump, who had previously been skeptical.[384]

The period of American history most dominated by Reagan and his policies that concerned taxes, welfare, defense, the federal judiciary and the
Cold War
is known today as the Reagan Era. This time period emphasized that the conservative "Reagan Revolution," led by Reagan, had a permanent impact on the United States in domestic and foreign policy. The
Bill Clinton administration
is often treated as an extension of the Reagan Era, as is the George W. Bush administration.[385]
Historian Eric Foner
noted that the Obama candidacy in 2008 "aroused a great deal of wishful thinking among those yearning for a change after nearly thirty years of Reaganism."[386]

Cultural and political image

According to columnist Chuck Raasch, "Reagan transformed the American presidency in ways that only a few have been able to."[387]
He redefined the political agenda of the times, advocating lower taxes, a conservative economic philosophy, and a stronger military.[388]
His role in the Cold War further enhanced his image as a different kind of leader.[389][390]
Reagan's "avuncular style, optimism, and plain-folks demeanor" also helped him turn "government-bashing into an art form."[164]

As a sitting president, Reagan did not have the highest approval ratings,[393]
but his popularity has increased since 1989. Gallup polls in 2001 and 2007 ranked him number one or number two when correspondents were asked for the greatest president in history. Reagan ranked third of post–World War II presidents in a 2007 Rasmussen Reports
poll, fifth in an ABC 2000 poll, ninth in another 2007 Rasmussen poll, and eighth in a late 2008 poll by British newspaper The Times.[394][395][396]
In a Siena College
survey of over 200 historians, however, Reagan ranked sixteenth out of 42.[397][398]
While the debate about Reagan's legacy is ongoing, the 2009 Annual C-SPAN
Survey of Presidential Leaders
ranked Reagan the 10th greatest president. The survey of leading historians rated Reagan number 11 in 2000.[399]

In 2011, the
Institute for the Study of the Americas
released the first ever British academic survey to rate U.S. presidents. This poll of British specialists in U.S. history and politics placed Reagan as the eighth greatest U.S. president.[400]

Reagan's ability to connect with Americans[401]
earned him the laudatory moniker "The Great Communicator."[402]
Of it, Reagan said, "I won the nickname the great communicator. But I never thought it was my style that made a difference—it was the content. I wasn't a great communicator, but I communicated great things."[403]
His age and soft-spoken speech gave him a warm grandfatherly image.[404][405][406]

Reagan also earned the nickname "the Teflon President," in that public perceptions of him were not tarnished by the controversies that arose during his administration.[407]
According to Colorado congresswoman Patricia Schroeder, who coined the phrase, and reporter Howard Kurtz, the epithet referred to Reagan's ability to "do almost anything wrong[407]
and not get blamed for it."[401][408]

Public reaction to Reagan was always mixed. He was the oldest president up to that time and was supported by young voters, who began an alliance that shifted many of them to the Republican party.[409]
Reagan did not fare well with minority groups, especially African-Americans. However, his support of Israel throughout his presidency earned him support from many Jews.[410]
He emphasized family values
in his campaigns and during his presidency, although he was the first president to have been divorced.[411]
The combination of Reagan's speaking style, unabashed patriotism, negotiation skills, as well as his savvy use of the media, played an important role in defining the 1980s and his future legacy.[412]

Reagan was known to joke frequently during his lifetime, displayed humor throughout his presidency,[413]
and was famous for his storytelling.[414]
His numerous jokes and one-liners
have been labeled "classic quips" and "legendary."[415]
Among the most notable of his jokes was one regarding the Cold War. As a microphone test in preparation for his weekly radio address
in August 1984, Reagan made the following joke: "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."[416]
Former aide David Gergen
commented, "It was that humor... that I think endeared people to Reagan."[217]

Reagan never left the United States during the war, but he kept a film reel that he obtained while he was in the service. The reel depicted the liberation of the
Auschwitz concentration camp; he believed that doubts would someday arise as to whether
the Holocaust
had occurred.[417]
It has been alleged that he was overheard telling Israeli foreign minister Yitzhak Shamir
in 1983 that he had filmed that footage himself and helped liberate Auschwitz,[417][418]
though this purported conversation was disputed by Secretary of State George P. Shultz.[419]

In 1981, Reagan was inducted as a Laureate of
The Lincoln Academy of Illinois
and awarded the Order of Lincoln (the state's highest honor) by the Governor of Illinois in the area of Government.[422]
In 1983, he received the highest distinction of the Scout Association of Japan, the
Golden Pheasant Award.[423]
In 1989, Reagan was made an Honorary Knight Grand Cross
of the Order of the Bath, one of the highest British orders (this entitled him to the use of the post-nominal letters "GCB" but, as a foreign national, not to be known as "Sir Ronald Reagan"); only two U.S. presidents have received this honor since attaining office, Reagan and George H. W. Bush,[424]
while Dwight D. Eisenhower
received his before becoming President in his capacity as a general after World War II. Reagan was also named an honorary Fellow of Keble College, Oxford. Japan awarded him the
Grand Cordon of the Order of the Chrysanthemum
in 1989; he was the second U.S. president to receive the order and the first to have it given to him for personal reasons (Dwight D. Eisenhower
received it as a commemoration of U.S.-Japanese relations).[425]
In 1990, Reagan was awarded the WPPAC's Top Honor Prize because he signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with H.E. Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (then President of Russia), ending the cold war.[426][427]

On January 18, 1993, Reagan received the
Presidential Medal of Freedom
(awarded with distinction), the highest honor that the United States can bestow, from President George H. W. Bush, his Vice President and successor.[428]
Reagan was also awarded the Republican Senatorial Medal of Freedom, the highest honor bestowed by Republican members of the Senate.[429]

In 1998 the
U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation
awarded Reagan its Naval Heritage award for his support of the U.S. Navy and military in both his film career and while he served as president.[432]

Congress authorized the creation of the
Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home
in Dixon, Illinois in 2002, pending federal purchase of the property.[433]
On May 16 of that year, Nancy Reagan accepted the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor bestowed by Congress, on behalf of the president and herself.[434]

In 2007, Polish President
Lech Kaczyński
posthumously conferred on Reagan the highest Polish distinction, the Order of the White Eagle, saying that Reagan had inspired the Polish people to work for change and helped to unseat the repressive communist regime; Kaczyński said it "would not have been possible if it was not for the tough-mindedness, determination, and feeling of mission of President Ronald Reagan."[442]
Reagan backed the nation of Poland throughout his presidency, supporting the anti-communist Solidarity
movement, along with Pope John Paul II;[443]
the Ronald Reagan Park, a public facility in
Gdańsk, was named in his honor.

On June 3, 2009, Nancy Reagan unveiled a statue of her late husband in the
United States Capitol rotunda. The statue represents the state of California in the
National Statuary Hall Collection. After Reagan's death, both major American political parties agreed to erect a statue of Reagan in the place of that of
Thomas Starr King.[444]
The day before, President Obama signed the Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission Act into law, establishing a commission to plan activities to mark the upcoming centenary of Reagan's birth.[445]

Independence Day 2011
saw the unveiling of another statue to Reagan—this time in the British capital of London, outside the U.S. embassy
in Grosvenor Square. The unveiling was supposed to be attended by Reagan's wife Nancy, but she did not attend; former Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice
took her place and read a statement on her behalf; further to the former First Lady's absence, President Reagan's friend and British prime minister during his presidency, Baroness Thatcher, was also unable to attend due to frail health.[446]

^Reagan's
botulism
joke is variously reported as "sometimes you wonder whether there shouldn't be an outbreak of botulism" (Sarasota Journal, March 7, 1974, p. 15A) and "It's just too bad we can't have an epidemic of botulism" (Los Angeles Times, March 14, 1974, "Reagan Raps Press on Botulism Quote.")

^"Biography of Gerald R. Ford". The White House. Archived from
the original
on April 11, 2007. Retrieved
March 29,
2007.
Ford considered himself as "a moderate in domestic affairs, a conservative in fiscal affairs, and a dyed-in-the-wool internationalist in foreign affairs."